"This conscious individuality of ours," said Polwarth, after a thoughtful silence, "is to me an awful thing--the one thing that seems in humanity like the onliness of God. Mine terrifies me sometimes--looking a stranger to me--a limiting of myself--a breaking in upon my existence--like a volcanic outburst into the blue Sicilian air. When it thus manifests itself, I find no refuge but the offering of it back to him who thought it worth making. I say to him: 'Lord, it is thine, not mine;--see to it, Lord. Thou and thy eternity are mine, Father of Jesus Christ.'" He covered his eyes with his hands, and his lips grew white, and trembled. Thought had turned into prayer, and both were silent for a space. Rachel was the first to speak. "I think I understand, uncle," she said. "I don't mind being God's dwarf. But I would rather be made after his own image; this can't be it. I should like to be made over again." "And if the hope we are saved by be no mockery, if St. Paul was not the fool of his own radiant imaginings, you will be, my child.--But now let us forget our miserable bodies. Come up to my room, and I will read you a few lines that came to me this morning in the park." "Won't you wait for Mr. Wingfold, uncle? He will be here yet, I think. It can't be ten o'clock. He always looks in on Saturdays as he goes home from his walk. I should like you to read them to him too. They will do him good, I know." "I would, my dear, willingly, if I thought he would care for them. But I don't think he would. They are not good enough verses. He has been brought up on Horace, and, I fear, counts the best poetry the neatest." "I think you must be mistaken there, uncle; I have heard him talk delightfully about poetry." "You must excuse me if I am shy of reading my poor work to any but yourself, Rachel. My heart was wo much in it, and the subject is so sacred--" "I am sorry you should think your pearls too good to cast before Mr. Wingfold, uncle," said Rachel, with a touch of disappointed temper. "Nay, nay, child," returned Polwarth, "that was not a good thing to say. What gives me concern is, that there is so much of the rough dirty shell sticking about them, that to show them would be to wrong the truth in them." Rachel seldom took long to repent. She came slowly to her uncle, where he stood with the lamp in his hand, looking in his face with a heavenly contrition, and saying nothing. When she reached him, she dropped on her knees, and kissed the hand that hung by his side. Her temper was poor Rachel's one sore-felt trouble. Polwarth stooped and kissed her on the forehead, raised her, and leading her to the stair, stood aside to let her go first. But when she had been naughty Rachel would never go before her uncle, and she drew back. With a smile of intelligence he yielded and led the way. But ere they had climbed to the top, Rachel heard Mr. Wingfold's step, and went down again to receive him. CHAPTER II. A DREAM.